30 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Reforms Again and Again Every administration in the 21st century has attempted to reform the State Department, and some of these efforts are reflected in the Trump administration’s recent moves. For example, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought to overhaul foreign assistance, trying to align it with the strategic diplomatic goals of the George W. Bush administration while making assistance more transparent and ensuring greater oversight. This push for reform was “due in large part to the Secretary’s inability to answer congressional inquiries regarding U.S. spending on democracy promotion,” wrote Gerald Hyman in a 2008 report published by the Carnegie Endowment. Similar concerns about democracy promotion spending have been cited by the Trump administration as reason for cutting foreign assistance; moving assistance programs under the purview of the regional bureaus; and drastically shrinking the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. The Obama administration undertook an even broader approach to State Department reform than the Bush administration, implementing the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR). Ultimately, the QDDR did not live up to its name, with reviews published only in 2010 and 2015. In 2012 a group of senators (including then-Senator Marco Rubio) introduced the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review Act, which sought to codify the QDDR process and authorized the Secretary of State to establish an Office of Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. While the QDDR effort obtained support from Congress, there was no institutional buy-in on the State side to facilitate the continuing review process. “Stakeholders largely viewed the resulting document as anchored by wish lists instead of real strategy,” Daniel Runde and Helen Moser wrote in an assessment of the 2010 QDDR process for the Center for Strategic and International Studies. One of the principal recommendations in the 2010 QDDR was that State reduce the use of contractors— a recommendation that was never pursued and has since returned as a goal of the second Trump administration’s State reform agenda. The first Trump administration did go to Congress with a State Department reform proposal in 2017 that aimed to “improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of the executive branch.” According to the 2021 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, “Congressional Oversight of the State Department: Review of Selected Organizational Reform Efforts,” Congress viewed the “Redesign” plan with hostility and “was able to leverage its oversight authorities to prevent the Trump administration from implementing a major reorganization” of the department. The proposed reforms in 2017 included merging USAID into State; Trump’s team did not seek approval from Congress for such a merger the second time around. The Trump administration appears to have taken the lesson from its first reform effort that it should act without the support of Congress and only later ask Congress to codify the changes it has made. The Biden administration’s Modernization Agenda took a more focused approach than the first Trump administration and sought to work with Congress to enact its proposed changes. Notably, this led to the creation of the new Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy, which has had bipartisan support from Congress and which the second Trump administration has not sought to eliminate. Other aspects of Biden’s Modernization Agenda, however, that do not enjoy broad congressional support, particularly those related to workforce modernization, have quickly been overturned by the current administration. Republican members of Congress, including Rubio, criticized the Biden administration’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at State. The incoming Trump administration celebrated its early elimination of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, seeing it as a political win that was unlikely to receive pushback from Congress. The Way Forward: The Role of Congress Several lessons from past reform attempts should inform future efforts. The most important is that while reform proposals should come from the executive branch, they must be designed with workforce buy-in and congressional support in mind. The executive branch decides how to deploy the State Department. To do this, it must understand what the institution’s capabilities and weaknesses are. The executive branch should source ideas from within the department’s ranks and choose Every administration in the 21st century has attempted to reform the State Department, and some of these efforts are reflected in the Trump administration’s recent moves.
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